Fistful of Feet (16 page)

   Stacklee was still apprehensive about putting his guard down despite the Indian having saved Calamaro’s life. He said, “Where’s the rest of your tribe?”

   Kimama gave a sly grin and shook his head. “I belong to no tribe. Not anymore.”

   “How’s that?”

   “I was told to leave.”

   “You with those Indians that are making camp outside of Screwhorse?”

   Kimama frowned. “No. Not them. My people are many, many miles away.”

   “I hope so,” Stacklee said. “Why you wearing a dress?”

   “I am both a man and a woman.”

   Stacklee squinted. “The hell you say?”

   “Sometimes when a baby is born, the gods put two spirits into its body. One man spirit and one woman spirit. In my tribe, those who have two spirits have two choices. They may dig the graves for the dead or they may tell the fortune of the living. I have chosen to do both.” He picked up his shovel and put it over his shoulder. “I like to keep busy.”

   Calamaro was next to him, wobbly on his feet. With painful effort he spoke.

   “I’m going back to town.”

   Stacklee shook his head. “That would be foolish as hell and you know it. You know those boys will finish the job. You best just count your blessings and continue on your way.” He looked down at the ground. “A lot of shit’s going on. One of the girls was killed. Real bad. I imagine if you come back to town, the sheriff will lock you up, too. Already locked up Tom Duma and that stranger who dresses like an Englishman.”

   Calamaro said, “I’m not going away.”

   “You understand you’re lucky? Lyons could’ve put a bullet in your head. You could be dead. You think it’s smart to give him the chance to kill you again?”

   Kimama started walking away.

   Stacklee said, “Where you going?”

   The Indian didn’t turn around when he spoke. He simply stopped walking and said, “I am going on my way. Your friend is welcome to join me while his body heals.” Then he continued on.

   Calamaro thought about his options. He was fearful of Indians but this one had saved his life. He walked over to the tree where his donkey was hung and untied it. Then he followed Kimama, dragging the donkey behind him in the sand.

   “I’m just leaving to heal for a while. I’ll be coming back,” Calamaro said.

   With a frustrated grunt, Stacklee followed them. As they walked, he looked at Calamaro’s wooden donkey.

   “Where’d you get that?”

   “Why?”

   “Just wondering is all. Not everyday you see someone dragging something like that across the desert.”

   Calamaro said, “After what happened to my wife and daughter, I started traveling, going nowhere in particular. I traveled westward and came across an abandoned Union prison camp. It was full of corpses.”

   “That’s not so strange,” Stacklee said. “A lot of people die in those types of camps.”

   “It wasn’t just that there were corpses. I mean there were bodies of men torn up like wild animals ate them or something. Skulls smashed, some skulls made into soup bowls. Fingers and toes all in piles. I think there was even a Union flag made of skin. It was as if the soldiers had tortured and killed all the prisoners once they found out the war was over.”

   Stacklee said, “That’s crazy.”

   “Yeah. I walked through the whole prison camp feeling like I was drunk or feverish, seeing things that weren’t there. I went inside one of the little buildings, I guess it was a room for the officers or something, and I saw this wooden donkey sitting next to a table with a plate of human toes right in front of him as if that was his supper. He even had a cap on, if you could believe it. The cap looked like it had been through battle and it had the name Sartana sewn into it so that’s what I call him. Sartana.”

   “Where’s the cap?”

   “I didn’t take it. I figured he don’t need it being he’s made of wood and all.”

   Stacklee looked at the hole in the side of the donkey. “Looks like there’s stuff in there.”

   “There is.”

   “What?”

   “Just some things. Some of the things I picked up along the way,” Calamaro said, pulling the leather reins so hard that his wrists and palms were bleeding again.

   “I see shoes. Lady shoes.”

   “Yeah, there’re some in there.”

   Stacklee tried not to smile but he couldn’t resist. “You wear them?”

   Calamaro laughed. “No, I don’t wear them.”

   “Then who does? You give them to ladies to wear?”

   “Most of them aren’t for wearing.”

   “What do you mean?” Stacklee said.

   Calamaro stopped and pulled one of the shoes out. It had a blade attached to its heel. “This is what I mean.”

   Stacklee nodded.

   Up ahead of them, Kimama stopped and pointed to a group of boulders forty yards ahead. “That is where we will stay. It is a good place to hide, a lot of small places that cannot be seen.”

   When they got there, Kimama made a soft spot out of desert weeds for Calamaro. “You can rest here. I will prepare some medicine for you.” He started digging in the pouch that hung around his neck.

   Stacklee said, “I’m not going to stay long. Betty’ll be worried sick.”

   “Do me a favor, Stacklee,” Calamaro said. “Don’t tell anyone else I’m alive. I guess you could tell Betty but make sure no one else finds out, not even any of those whores. Lyons and the others find out I’m alive they’ll have time to prepare and they’re likely to take out their anger on you and Betty. Understand?”

   “I do.” Stacklee left for town. The other two men were alone among the boulders. Calamaro asked if he would be willing to help in getting vengeance on the men who buried him alive. The Indian agreed.

   After they had a plan, Kimama handed over a handful of crushed herbs. “Swallow this.”

   Calamaro looked at the medicine the Indian had prepared and thought it looked like something a man would vomit. Still, he figured that Kimama probably knew what he was doing. It was unlikely that he would be trying to kill Calamaro since he had already saved his life. He swallowed the herbs and then felt heat well up in his chest.

   Kimama said, “You will feel many things. It is okay. Just close your eyes. If you feel scorpions on your skin, do not be afraid. That is how it works.”

   For the next hour, Calamaro was in and out of delirium. He decided to put all of his trust in the Indian and fought the fear that came when he felt scorpions pinching his skin. He smelt burning flesh and the musky scent of an unwashed woman. There were sounds, too, like the chattering of many teeth and the low roaring of a steam engine.

   Then he felt a hand on his forehead and assumed it was Kimama’s but when he opened his eyes, he saw the Indian sitting ten feet away. Calamaro closed his eyes again and was lulled into sleep by the sound of high heels clip-clopping around him.

   He saw his wife and daughter dead on the floor of his house. Their killers were seated at the table, eating and drinking. He looked at the men. Every single one of them looked like William Lyons.

   One of the killers looked over and said, “That your family? We sure did enjoy killing them. Especially your wife. We even stuck our fingers in her holes to see what we’d find. Sometimes there’s treasure in there. This time there was just some dead scorpions inside your wife’s ass. How about that?” The killer took a bite of food. “She’s worthless but makes a mighty good meal.”

   Rage surged through Calamaro’s body. He tried reaching for his pistol but it wasn’t there. The men at the table continued to eat while the bodies of his wife and daughter were melting into blue puddles filled with tiny crabs.

   Calamaro felt himself running from the house, running from the men who all looked like William Lyons. He vowed he’d come back and get revenge on the killers of his family. He would come back and slaughter them all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

   “So, he’s okay?” Betty said.

   “Well, he’s alive.” Stacklee had told her the whole story about Calamaro. “I wouldn’t say the man’s okay physically or even mentally. The man’s got a lot of healing to do.”

   Betty said, “I guess he’ll just have to …”

   There was a scream from upstairs. It was Angie.

   Betty ran up to her room and found her crying on the hallway floor. She pointed down the hall. “It’s the new girl.”

   “Who? Rebecca?” Betty said. Angie nodded.

   Betty slowly opened the door. In the middle of the floor was Rebecca’s body lying in a pool of blood and intestines. Her throat had been cut and her body sliced open.

   Betty started to cry. Within the last twenty-four hours two of her girls had been murdered. Calamaro was abducted and most likely dead. It was all too much for her.

   Then there was another scream. This time it was Stacklee saying that Lady Troy was dead, too. Her killer had cut her throat and left her face-down in the chamber pot.

   “Angie, when was the last time you talked to Lady Troy?” Betty said.

   “Yesterday. But I heard her singing this morning. She was fine.”

   “Go tell the sheriff two more girls are dead,” Betty said. “Stacklee, get all the girls out of their rooms.”

   Stacklee nodded.

   Angie broke down, sobbing like a wounded child. “Who could have done something like that? I can’t…..” She stomped downstairs and left the brothel.

   When Angie walked into the jail, Sheriff Doyle was leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigar. He looked worn out.

   “Sheriff,” she said. “Two more girls are dead!”

   “You have to be fucking kidding me.” Sheriff Doyle slammed his fist against the wall. Was the shit storm never going to end? He grabbed his hat and headed for the door.

   As he was walking out, he bumped into Mrs. Duma.

   “I’m here to see my husband, sheriff,” she said.

   “That right? Well, it’s his lucky day.”

   “Why’s that?”

   Doyle didn’t answer. He just grabbed his keys and led her to the jail cell. Though he was always polite to the woman, something about her irked him. She was just too bitchy for his taste. How Tom Duma lived with her and didn’t put a bullet in his head was beyond him.

* * *

   Bluford Barnes had just closed his eyes when he heard the sheriff walk in with Tom’s wife strutting in behind him. She was an intense and bitter-looking woman but attractive, very attractive. Bluford thought that under different circumstances, he might like to make a try at her. She looked like she’d enjoy a good, hard screw.

   Mrs. Duma handed her husband his coat and hat. Something in Bluford’s mind clicked. There was something wrong. But what? Then he saw it.

   The coat. The hat.

   Bluford froze. In his mind he saw the shadowy person at the bottom of the stairs and it became clear that it was the same man who was now getting freed from the jail cell.

   Tom Duma put his hat on and then turned to the sheriff. “No hard feelings. I know you were doing your job.”

   Sheriff Doyle nodded. “Just make sure you cooperate next time.”

   As Tom Duma put his coat on, he started to cough. It was a thick, loud phlegm-filled cough that was instantly familiar with Bluford. It was the same one that woke him up right before he discovered Lily’s body.

   And now the sheriff was shaking hands with Tom. Bluford’s throat constricted, nausea creeping through his body. He watched the killer leave with his wife.

   The sheriff looked back at Bluford.

   “You going or what?” the sheriff said.

   Bluford didn’t answer. He simply ran out of the cell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

   Betty was looking at a walking corpse.

   Or at least that’s what she first thought. The man who walked through the doorway was bloody, his face mutilated beyond recognition. His body was covered in thick dust.

   “Oh my God,” Betty said, dropping the glass of whiskey she was drinking from. It shattered at her feet, splashing alcohol all over her boots.

   The walking corpse smiled and said, “So. How do I look?”

   It was Calamaro.

   Betty laughed through her tears. It was amazing how this man who had just gone through hell managed to show a sense of humor. But she knew that it was only for her sake, so that she didn’t break down completely. Calamaro was no doubt suffering both physically and mentally.

   Betty came out from the back of the bar and ran up to him, wrapping her arms so tight around Calamaro that he grunted in pain. She let go but then placed her hand on the small of his back.

   From behind Betty, Stacklee walked downstairs. He said, “So, looks like the Indian knew what he was doing. You managed to walk back to town okay.”

   “I don’t feel as shitty as I look,” Calamaro said. “I feel like I took a bad fall off a horse. But I imagine my face looks pretty bad.”

   “Well, it doesn’t look good.”

   Calamaro laughed and when he did, blood and drool seeped out of the gashes in his face. Betty pulled a handkerchief from her brassiere and wiped his face. She turned to Stacklee. “Did you tell all the girls to leave?”

   “All of them but Mary and June,” he said. “June said she wanted to stay and being she was sick, I didn’t want to argue. I thought we’d take turns watching her. And Mary still has Timothy Horn in there. She said he’s been out cold for a few hours. Man wore himself out.”

   Betty said, “Well, I still don’t feel safe with them up there.”

   “As long as we’re done here, no one’s getting in.” Stacklee turned to Calamaro. “And I found out from Kersey that Nix and his boys are up in your room at the hotel.”

   “Did you tell him to take his customers and clear out?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Did he give you any trouble about it?”

   Stacklee said, “Who? Kersey? No, he knows something’s going to happen whether he likes it or not.”

   Betty grabbed Calamaro’s shoulder. “Don’t do this.”

   “You know damn well I’m not going to change my mind.” He put his hand on hers. “But I appreciate you trying to stop me.”

   Kimama walked in through the back door, dragging his shovel. He said, “The man named Lyons. He is in his house.”